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Two Forms of Technological Soteriology
Recently in Easter and the Brotherhood of Mankind
I discussed the close coupling of eschatology and soteriology in the
western tradition. This is something that I have been meaning to address
for a long time, but I haven’t had the words for it as yet. (The words
are still inadequate, but I hope the idea came through nevertheless.) In
the course of this exposition I noted that science presents us with a
grand cosmological eschatology, but no associated soteriology. I
received a comment on that post from
Gregor L. Hartmann, who rightly pointed out that transhumanist hopes for
a life everlasting (albeit technologically embodied) constitutes a
technological soteriology.
In another essay, Technologies of Life Extension, I reviewed a range of different possibilities open to the transhumanist for life extension, which implies that transhumanism
is not one, but many. And, even beyond the many different possible
forms of life extension, there are many different possible forms of life
enhancement (something I touched upon in
Transhumanism and Adaptive Radiation).
So I’ve thought a lot about how transhumanism could transform the life
of the individual ways, but I had initially failed to see this as a form
of soteriology consistent with and predicated upon scientific
civilization and a scientific conception of the cosmos.
Now
another form of technological soteriology has occurred to me, perhaps as
obvious as the example of transhumanism, and that is simply for the
individual to identify himself or herself with the project of
elaborating the scientific conception of the cosmos. This can take a
form as adventurous as becoming an astronaut and exploring new worlds,
or a form as intellectual as continuing to elaborate the scientific
vision of the cosmos and the place of human beings within it. In other
words, there are many forms of technological soteriology even within the
idea of identifying oneself with cosmological eschatology.
Since the project of science is essentially infinitistic, the soteriology of coupling one’s life, or the life of one’s species, to the scientific project, is also infinitistic. This observation brings out a contrast that hadn’t previously thought of: perfections are usually conceived as finite goods, and the role of the idea of perfection in traditional soteriologies is prominent (and has a political parallel in Comte de Maistre). While perfection may be a distant goal, if an individual attains perfection, they have arrived at their destination, and there is nothing further than remains except to continue to exist in this unchanging perfection (which would be one way to describe eternity in heaven).
The
soteriology of identification with cosmological eschatology admits of
no unchanging perfection. Scientific exploration and discovery can
continue without end, as can the elaboration of scientific knowledge
based upon this exploration and discovery. This infinitistic ideal
possibly differentiates technological soteriology from its finitistic
alternatives more definitively than only ontological commitments of the
finitistic or infinitistic worldviews.
Another point: the
soteriology of identification with cosmological eschatology is equally
valid for the individual or for the species, so that this soteriology
can offer the same hope to both the individual seeking to identify with
the scientific project and an entire species that seeks to identify with
the scientific project. That hope is the possibility of making a real
contribution to the scientific enterprise, and so securing a permanent
legacy for oneself or one’s species. Also, this soteriological
conception is not limited to the contributions of a single species or a
single kind of conscious: even an artificial consciousness could
contribute meaningfully to the scientific project, and so receive in
turn the meaning that derives from participation in a great enterprise
that transcends not only the individual, but also possibly transcends a
civilization and even a species.
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